Home culture is the atmosphere that is purposefully and intentionally cultivated within the four walls of your home. It is the music when you walk in the door, it is the conversation at the dinner table, it is games played by the fireside, it is the singing when your daughters do the dishes or the laughter of small toddlers who find a small green caterpillar. Culture…it exists just as richly and lively inside your home as it does outside your front door.

Dear Mothers, we weave the tapestry of homelife for our loved ones as we create the culture of our home. As we sit down and plan the days and months ahead, we purposefully begin writing what is akin to a novel of soon-to-be memories of our families lives. The music played the background of your homes today will become the soundtrack from their childhood. The art you hang on your walls can leave a deep and lasting impression on a child’s mind and soul. Children will forever fondly remember the smells, music, joy and memories of their childhood and always fondly desire to return to it…even when they are old and gray.

But even more importantly than these things are what is experienced in a home. Is there joy, peace and forgiveness? Or is there anger, strife and quarreling? That is what makes a home. Not the fancy furnishings, or the designer tablecloth that the magazines taunt us with—but the LOVE and TIME that is lovingly sacrificed for one another. Mothers, even if all the earth around you is wicked—you alone create and make your home a small haven for your family behind those closed doors, a sacred dwelling where Christ is center. There could be ruin and folly outside your doors, but inside your peaceful sanctuary you, with loving hands, create a calm refuge for those you love.

Christ must always be the center of the home otherwise all other things will be off balance. True peace cannot be attained if the Prince of Peace is absent. At home, make every effort to teach to children patiently His Word, doctrine, and apologetics, teach them about the world around them so they will be a well-trained soldier going into battle totally prepared. Patiently explain to them the gospel as many times as it takes in the hopes of saving their souls and do not abandon or assume this precious responsibility to another.

At the meal table be sure to enjoy lively discussions about scripture, ethics, worldviews, missions, current events, church planting, sermons, ways to minister to others, etc. Home should be the hub of excitement–where great plans and great lives are molded, where hospitality and ministry takes place. We do not need a church program to do ministry–instead we need to view our homes as a focal point for ministry to begin at. Are our homes perfect? Certainly not–a home filled with sinners will contain sin! Mercy, grace and forgiveness are common visitors at our home. A home of imperfect sinners will learn to rely heavily, humbly and wholeheartedly on it’s Savior.

Home should be a merry, spirited place of celebration—joke around, wrestle, play games, chase eachother, go out together, travel, play instruments, sing together, relax together. Do not stifle children with a rigid and cold home environment and extinguish the joy from their hearts. Children are like flowers who bask in the sun of love. Too often we ignore our children or put stern expectations on them and do not savor the grandeur and beauty of their childhood. Home should also be a place that when the dark streets temptingly beckons our children’s hearts –that they will remember the sweetness and joy of the homelife and hopefully choose that safe shelter instead.

Home culture takes planning…it takes time…it takes thought.

Mothers hold the brush in painting the beauty, fun and memories in children’s lives.

“By wisdom a house is built, and by understanding it is established; by knowledge the rooms are filled with all precious and pleasant riches.”–Proverbs 24:3-4

Dear Mothers, what a privilege it is to prepare such a place for our families.

Prayerfully begin planning the culture for your home today!

(This was Part 11 of The Christian Mother Series, to view the entire series click on the button below)

About The Author

June Fuentes is the happy wife to Steve and blessed homeschooling mother to eight beautiful children that they are raising for the Lord. She has a heart to see mothers all around the world grasp the vision of biblical motherhood and to see this noble role restored in the 21st century to the glory of God. June strongly believes that weak homes equate a weak nation and therefore blogs at
A Wise Woman Builds Her Home to minister to Christian women on how to build up strong Christian homes. She is also the owner of the popular blog, Raising Homemakers, and is the author of the encouraging eBook, True Christian Motherhood. She is the founder of Wise Woman Consulting, her service to teach women how to successfully make money blogging at home and a consultant for Lilla Rose, where you can find unique and beautiful hair products. Together with her husband and dear friends, they are planting a church in the Midwest. She would love for you to join her on the journey to biblical womanhood on Facebook and Twitter at @wisewomanbuilds.

Comments

8 Responses to “The Exquisite Home Culture”

What a beautifully written post. Thank you for the the kind, sweet reminder of what our homes are to be… a place of refuge and peace for our families. So often we get caught up in the day to day issues of life that we can forget that. This really touched my heart!

I would suggest Allposters.com—they have a wide variety at a reasonable price. You can even get your order matted and custom framed if you so desire. I just recently ordered from them and they were prompt and courteous. I love hanging artwork in my home that inspires my family.

When I look back on my childhood home I am filled with such wonderful memories and a feeling of safety and peace. I want that to be what my children remember and feel when they grow up. I hope that is what I am creating; that is my aim and has been all along.

Home to me is the place where you can shut the world out, where you can feel loved and wanted and where there will always be a place for you.

I think one of the best feelings now for me though is when my daughter says ‘I want to stay here with you forever mummy’ – I hope that means I am doing something right!

How beautiful! How true! I hope and pray as I am preparing our new home that it will be centered in Christ, that it is a place welcoming to others, and inspiring us to draw closer to the Lord and helping in preparing for His little blessing He chooses for us to temporarily care for and instruct in His ways in this life. I hope that the hearts of our earthly “bound” sisters are softened and turned back to what we were meant to embrace as God set us apart as the keepers of the home and helpers to our husbands!!

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